Should Harry Potter die?

[Rita Winston]

No: HPFGUIDX 1977

--- In HPforGrownups at egroups.com, eggplant88 at h... wrote:
> Do you think Harry Potter will die at the end of book 7? Rowling
has 
> already said she doesn't plan to continue the series after 7 so at 
> that point she really won't have any further use for him.

It would certainly be very literary if Harry carries out the 
prophecy, which everyone but him knows about, that the only way 
Voldemort can be killed (Voldemort CAN be killed, altho' evil will 
continue to exist) is if Harry (and it has to be Harry, not only 
because of his pedigree and horoscope, but all those parallelisms of 
both being orphans, both Parseltongues, V now containing H's blood, 
etc) dies in the act of killing him. Part of what makes it so 
literary is that it has overtones of the basic Christian story, which 
is of course one of the main archetypal stories in Western culture. 
Also, it would explain why Rowling has a fair degree of confidence 
that she is not going to write about Harry's life after Hogwarts.

It would also explain why Snape is determined to keep Harry alive 
despite hating Harry. Snape clearly has no desire to protect Harry 
from humiliation, hurt feelings, bad grades, and so on, but 
repeatedly protects him from death. Of course at the end of Book 1 it 
is revealed that Snape was taking the curse off Harry's broomstick, 
not putting it on. In Book 3, Snape rakes him over the coals for 
having sneaked out to Hogmeade. Snape does so with anger and hatred 
and gives the appearance that his motive is spite, but he's really 
the saying the same thing as Lupin: Is going out to drink butterbeer 
worth getting killed for, and disappointing all the people who are 
trying to keep you alive? Snape is one the people trying to keep 
Harry alive, not for any fondness for Harry, but for the sake of 
getting Voldemort killed.